


through the years

by lutzaussi



Series: markers and idiots [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Hatake Kakashi is an Idiot, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 10:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10695054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lutzaussi/pseuds/lutzaussi
Summary: Kakashi realizes at twenty-six that he didn't appreciate what he had growing up: someone who could be a companion to him, someone who could be with him through the good and the bad. (the sex is pretty great, too.)





	through the years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unseelieknight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unseelieknight/gifts).



From the time Hatake Kakashi is born to the year he turns fourteen, he doesn’t care about his soulmate. He knows he must have one, because once he has made Jounin he’s had multi-colored marker scribbles and sloppily written words criss-crossing his fingers on and off for months.

But they are on the backburner of his life which, if he took the time to step back and consider, would probably rightly be called a dumpster fire. After losing Obito and Rin in relatively quick succession, he takes solace in the usefulness he has as a member of the Anbu, even if Minato-sensei’s face begins to look worried whenever Kakashi sees him.

He doesn’t need a soulmate, anyway. They’ll probably just die, as well.

-

When he is fourteen and weeks after the Kyuubi has decimated the village and killed some of the last people that Kakashi cared about, Kakashi pauses in between helping rebuild and taking missions and finds words written in a shaking hand on the back of his left hand.

_ are you all right? _

Kakashi stops what he is doing (making breakfast, trying to forget) and feels his breath catch in his throat. It takes him the better part of ten minutes to find a pen that has ink and he stares at his hand for another five minutes, not quite sure what to write back.

_ I’m alive _ , he settles on. After he’s finished breakfast and gotten ready for the day he looks down at his hand, finds the question illegible, as if it had water smeared over it. Minutes later the words  _ thank you _ are picked out in the same, shaking hand.

-

They don’t write often and Kakashi doesn’t particularly want to. It doesn’t even register to him that his soulmate may not feel the same, but Kakashi is young and angry and does not want to hurt anyone else. He doesn’t want whoever the poor sap is to figure out that  _ Hatake Kakashi  _ is their soulmate, that isn’t something he would wish on anyone.

-

At eighteen Kakashi finds himself with a friend, even if that friend is technically his subordinate. But he doesn’t mind that and neither does Tenzou. He enjoys his work as the squad leader of Team Ro, needed work that they do quickly and well.

He doesn’t often find anything written on himself, but he does find himself occasionally wishing the other well on holidays and the like. Whoever his soulmate is, they must be busy as well, because they rarely even respond to the well-wishes. But when they do respond their writing is decisive, no longer shaking, and Kakashi wonders if they lost someone during the Kyuubi’s attack, too.

-

When Kakashi is twenty and verging on deciding to retire from the Anbu, his soulmate takes to writing notes on their arms. Haphazardly written tangential words and phrases with no particular unifying theme that he can identify, though Kakashi does recognize some of the highly advanced vocabulary as relating to seals, some to barrier ninjutsu, some that maybe relate to teaching.

Kakashi doesn’t have much time to try and puzzle the notes out, though. In between missions and more missions and occasionally trying to sleep, he sometimes even forgets that anything outside of his very tired life exists. He isn’t so forgetful that he disregards his soulmate, though, feels obligated not to since he is stuck with them and them with him. 

He never forgets the main holidays, scribbling out nearly illegible salutations before or in between missions. The ink inevitably smears when he secures his arm guards, but is still there, reminding him that he has links to the world.

-

In August the year he is twenty, his soulmate draws five confetti poppers on their left arm, from inner elbow to the inside of their wrist. Kakashi notices it when he’s on a mission, has to stop himself from laughing in front of his squad. He doesn’t even know the occasion, but his soulmate is obviously happy and that, surprisingly, makes him happy.

-

The year that Kakashi turns twenty-two is a year of mixed feelings and experiences. Team Ro gains a member, the young Uchiha Itachi, and the young man thrives. It isn’t long before Itachi is promoted, but Kakashi doesn’t begrudge him that; the roster shifts and his spot is filled. The Uchiha clan, already planning a coup d’etat, is massacred, leaving one small, scarred boy to shoulder their legacy.

And Kakashi retires, almost gladly after all that he has seen and done.

He doesn’t write on himself for so much of the year because he is going, going, going. With his retirement from Anbu, however, he has time again to himself, and while he misses the comrades he gained in his time as a squad leader, he rediscovers all of the people he left behind.

Gai is as...well, as energetic as ever, putting it as nicely as possible. He welcomes Kakashi back into the circle of Jounin as though Kakashi never had joined the Anbu. Kakashi marvels at seeing the others, Kurenai and Asuma, the other kids he had never paid attention to but were already Chuunin and Jounin. He finds that has missed quite a lot.

-

The year after he has returned to being a Jounin full time, two things of importance happen. First, he is assigned a Genin team for the first time and fails them. Second, he wakes on the fifteenth of September to two messages written on the inside of his right forearm,  _ happy birthday _ and  _ wish me luck! _

Kakashi never told his soulmate his birthday, but he finds a marker after some searching and writes, underneath the second,  _ good luck _ .

-

His soulmate has beautiful handwriting and Kakashi half-wishes, when he has just turned twenty-six and the words  _ happy birthday _ are once again slowly wearing off his hand, that he could get over himself long enough to find them. He has a full month off after a three month long mission to recover a broken ankle, and really there is nothing better for him to spend his time doing.

_ how are you? _ he sends as an opener, before turning to cleaning his apartment in lieu of fretting.

Hours later, around when most people would be at lunch, the word  _ busy _ appears on his forearm. Kakashi considers that for maybe fifteen minutes before writing, also on his forearm,  _ with what? _

For five hours that he is terrified that maybe he’s scared his soulmate away and he compulsively cleans his bathroom twice in that time, making sure that the ink doesn’t get smudged or wiped off.

_ work _ , comes first, written quickly and somewhat sloppily,  _ winter sucks _ .

It strikes Kakashi, then, that he isn’t even really sure where his soulmate is from, but he shoves that from his mind to write  _ what do you do? _

_ teach _ is the short answer, still sloppily written. Before Kakashi can write anything else, his soulmate writes,  _ you’re being nosy today, any particular reason?  _ Kakashi finds himself inexplicably blushing.

-

(it does not occur to Kakashi that maybe he could just ask his soulmate for a name; he is never used to just being given anything, he is used to finding things out on his own)

-

Kakashi finds, as winter turns to spring, that he likes his soulmate. Whoever they are, they are witty and not afraid to call him on his bullshit. They seem to know him, which is confusing, and they seem to view this entire thing, all of the back and forth, with some sort of resigned amusement.

His soulmate is the first person to hear that Kakashi wears a mask because his face reminds him of his father. They’re the first to know when Kakashi gets back from missions. And, whoever they are, they’re the first to hear that Kakashi is going to have another Genin team.

_ who? _ is the followup to that fact, and Kakashi actually has to find the paper because while he can remember the name of Minato-sensei’s kid, he already forgot the names of the other two.

_ Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Uchiha Sasuke _ , he writes back. The response is an almost instantaneous  _ oh _ followed by  _ good luck _ which makes him narrow his eyes.

_ do you know them, teach? _ he writes after a few moments of deliberation.

The hesitation in his soulmate’s writing is physically palpable even though they are nowhere near each other.  _ I was their teacher. _

-

Kakashi makes himself sleep and eat breakfast before going to harass the teachers at the Academy. He’s practically vibrating because it is  _ the day _ . He is going to find his soulmate.

Suzume nearly has a heart attack when he appears in her otherwise empty classroom and while that is admittedly funny she doesn’t really look like she’s going to help him. Kakashi considers his options for a minute and wonders, briefly, if Gai would know. Gai is not particularly trustworthy in who he knows, though, so Suzume is safer for the moment.

“Do you know who taught Uzumaki Naruto, Suzume-sensei?” he asks.

Her eyes narrow and she asks in return, “Why do you need to know, Hatake-san?”

He panics and comes up with easiest excuse, “I’m going to be testing him as his potential Jounin sensei.”

“Oh,” she looks marginally less ready to kill him, instead points back to the open door, “Umino Iruka-sensei, he’s all the way down on the right. I wouldn’t recommend flickering in.”

-

Kakashi does visual recon before going into the classroom and finds one Umino Iruka, or who he assumes is Umino Iruka. Whoever the hell it is, Iruka or otherwise, they’re dang cute, and he scrabbles around in his weapons pouches for a few moments before finding a marker.

_ on your left _ , Kakashi writes on the back of his left hand, because might as well test the waters and double-check. He is nothing if not thorough.

After a few moments this Iruka person glances from his desk and his hand, a frown on his face, and looks to the left. Kakashi ignores what Suzume told him, flickers into the room.

“Fuck--” Iruka nearly throws a kunai at him until he sees who it is, then the kunai disappears and the man’s face drops into his hands. “Kakashi-san, what are you doing here?”

Kakashi doesn’t dilly-dally. “Why didn’t you just,” Kakashi waves a hand in the general direction of Iruka’s face, “tell me who you are?”

Iruka looks distinctly unimpressed, returns to looking through the papers on his desk. “Why didn’t you just ask?”

-

(Kakashi is a big enough person to realize, after finally meeting Iruka, that he has been something of an idiot)

-

They don’t see each other often because Kakashi has a Genin team to train and Iruka has a classroom of thirty hellions to keep under control, but Kakashi annoys Iruka into meeting him for dinner and lunch and sometimes just for tea. Sometimes he shows up outside of the Academy building on his way to meet his team in the mornings and just stares at Iruka, until one morning the man walks through the occupied desks of students, opens one of the windows, and bellows, “YOU HAVE WORK TO BE DOING!”

He still does it after that, if only on principle.

-

Through their multitude of haphazard dinner- and lunch- and tea-dates Kakashi slowly begins to realize that his younger self was an idiot for wanting to stay at arm's length from the whole soulmate business. Iruka is great, if sometimes a little frightening, the sex is great, the whole fact that he is being intimate with someone after over a decade of shying away from it isn’t just great, it takes the fucking cake.

He  _ loves _ Iruka and Kami does that feel great.

-

Kakashi wakes up after fighting Zabuza for the first time to at least twenty hearts covering his hands and, on the inside of his wrist, in small writing,  _ are you all right? _

The first thing that Kakashi does when Sakura asks him if he needs anything is ask her to bring him the marker he keeps in one of his weapons pouches. She looks absolutely perplexed but does so, and it takes him a little longer than he would like to write  _ I’m alive _ , the stupid lovestruck smile on his face hidden under his mask.

Iruka doesn’t write thank you this time, but he does write  _ you better stay that way _ .

-

Over the rest of the mission Kakashi winds up with probably four dozen hearts across his hands and arms and at that point he gives up trying to hide them from his students, the nosy bastards that they are. Sakura is the only one with the courage to comment on them, though, and she just says, “Your soulmate must really love you.”

Kakashi affords her a rare, full-face smile, and says, “Yes, he does.”


End file.
